FX president John Landgraf met the Television Critics Association today with some announcement on upcoming new shows. “Fargo” has cast Billy Bob Thornton in an adaptation of the Coen Brothers movie. However the characters and story are entirely different from the film. Thornton is not playing the character that William H. Macy played in the movie.
“There is no William H. Macy character,” revealed Landgraf. “There are no characters in the limited series ‘Fargo’ that are derived from the characters in the film Fargo, but the show which is still hard to describe how remarkably true to the film it is.”
There is a female police officer, but not the pregnant sheriff Frances McDormand played in the film. “Not a sheriff, she’s a deputy so she’s not really the character from Fargo,” said Landgraf. “He’s just managed somehow to invent a new version of ‘Fargo’ that is really its own thing but is true to the original.”
Landgraf welcomed notes from the Coen brothers, but instead received their blessings. “When Joel and Ethan Coen actually saw the script, they said, ‘Well, we don’t really know how to give notes so can we rewrite it?’’ They sent back half a dozen pages with just a few dialogue suggestions. They really thought Noah Hawley nailed the tone.”
“Fargo” could also follow the “American Horror Story” model. If it’s a hit, it could return with an entirely new cast. “The story of ‘Fargo’ ends at the 10th episode of ‘Fargo.’ Those characters don’t continue. Just like ‘American Horror Story,’ the characters don’t continue for one season to the next. It’d have to be a whole new story in the tone and vernacular of ‘Fargo.’’”
FX is also moving ahead with “The Strain,” based on Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s trilogy of books. Del Toro is producing the series, which could be between three and five seasons.
“When Guillermo came in to sell it, one of the things they made clear is that they wanted to tell the story of the books, that that story would be told over three, four or five seasons. They had work to do in terms of figuring out how to re-situate that story in an episodic television series. That show will be somewhere between 39 and 65 episodes, no less, no more.”
“The Strain” is a vampire story, and it will be as violent as other horror shows on cable television. “‘The Strain’ is pretty graphic,” offered Landgraf. “It’s a horror show. I think you can expect content commensurate with ‘Walking Dead’ and ‘American Horror Story.’“
